That summer blurred into a string of evenings that smelled like cut grass and popsicles.
Dylan never quite stopped being awkward — but to Skie and Conner, that became part of his charm.
They taught him how to ride a bike on the cracked sidewalk in front of their houses. He crashed into a trash can on day two, cried, then got up and tried again. Skie tied a red ribbon to his handlebars and dubbed him Captain Wobble.
He hated it. But the nickname stuck.
Conner taught him how to throw a spiral with a football. Dylan, in return, taught them how to fold paper stars and whisper the meanings of constellations. They made a secret pact under Orion's Belt: No matter what, the three of us stick.
Their hideout became the playground. They carved their initials under the slide, buried a time capsule with a note that read:
"To Future Us — Don't be boring. And don't forget this."
On rainy days, Dylan would bring over stacks of graphic novels, and Skie would roll her eyes but end up finishing half of them. Conner once tried to prank him with a fake spider. Dylan screamed, knocked over a lamp, and then made them both apologize with chocolate milk and apology notes written in crayon.
Time passed. Teeth fell out. Haircuts changed. Jokes got funnier. Feelings got messier.
They didn't notice at first how Conner started standing a little closer to Skie when she laughed, or how Dylan would watch them from the corner of his eye, like he was trying to memorize something before it disappeared.
They were growing. All three of them. Together.
And while none of them said it out loud yet — not even in whispers — they could feel it:
The shift.
Something was coming. The kind of change you can't stop. The kind that makes you choose — even when you don't want to.